Only By the Night
by stripedheart
Summary: You know that I could use somebody. Elle/Claire. Series of one-shots.
1. 17

_Set to Kings of Leon's_ Only By the Night_._

_**17.**_

_(Oh, she's only 17._

_Whine whine whine, weep over everything.)_

This is the part Elle hates.

She picks at her thumbnail. Lets an electric blue spark flicker off the top, fizzle into nothing. Absently, she lifts it to her mouth and bites at the tip of the nail. Her blue eyes flash, flicker across the room, dangerous yet void of real understanding.

This is what will truly drive her crazy.

It's the _waiting_. The classes that drag on and on and on, the featureless students that surround her, the absence of _power_. The bland submission that echoes through every one of them. She feels her control thrumming through her, invisible electrical impulses firing rapidly. The heady knowledge that she could destroy everyone with one swift move, with a quick collection of power deep in her chest and an even faster release, and _boom_.

The place would be leveled. No one would survive.

Except for _her_.

Elle slides further down in her desk, her Chucks squeaking loudly against the linoleum. The teacher turns slightly, flashes her a disapproving look that shifts into unease, and then goes back to the board. Something about Elle's eyes makes everyone nervous- maybe they spark like her fingers, maybe they cut like her lightning bolts. Elle feels a trickle of energy slide down the back of her neck and her hairs stand on end. Her toes are tingling. She's angry, suddenly, almost uncontrollably. She's burning with energy. But her daddy's voice whispers behind her eyes, between her ears.

_Patience. Put it all inside._

The energy fizzles back to a slow simmer. It's all she does nowadays, anyway. Waits, patiently. She stretches her fingers out to drum them against the hard desk, but then pulls them back, shoves them into her lap. She has to keep out of sight, away from the limelight, and it isn't easy for a girl who's been the center of attention all her life. It isn't easy for a girl who's never actually had free time.

She doesn't know what to do with herself.

So she watches _her_.

"May I go to the bathroom?" She raises her hand and smiles in a way she hopes is sweet. She's never actually smiled, either. In some ways, she misses the control of the Company, but there's this desperate little twitch inside of her that begs her to _discover_, to _learn_. Maybe it's a delayed childhood. Maybe it's some form of madness.

_(It's a tick of our time and the tic in her head that made me feel so strange.)_

She's wandering the halls, her bangs shielding part of her face, her eyes on the floor, when someone bumps into her.

"I'm sorry." The person sniffles, but doesn't stop. Elle glances up to see _her_. _Her_, with mascara streaks down her face and pained red eyes focused somewhere else. She keeps hurrying down the hall. There's a flicker of a grimace on Elle's face (she still doesn't understand tears, doesn't get how they can _change_ anything) but it disappears. And she's left with a desperate feeling of lost control, and helplessness. Her body turns, following Claire.

"Are you okay?" Her voice disappears, caught in her throat. A tiny whisper barely breathed into the space. The second the words leave her lips, she has a desperate desire to draw them back in. But Claire doesn't hear her. Elle snaps her teeth on her bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood. Stills her body, hoping she won't be noticed again. She marvels at the whole fiasco for a moment, watches the blonde cheerleader disappear around the corner with her hand on her face.

Elle's eyes are wide.

Her life is a repeating of actions, of words and commands, and the only break in normalcy is _her_. Claire is the only thing that makes Elle feel and most of the time she doesn't even know what it _is_. She doesn't even know the words to classify it, or how anyone can tell the things apart. They're all just flutterings in her stomach, just changes in her blood pressure. It confuses the hell out of her.

But Elle's always up for a challenge.


	2. I Want You

_**I Want You.**_

_(The night vision shows she was only ducking the truth.)_

She's hanging around. Again. Leaning against an old, broken oak to the side of the bleachers with her arms wrapped around her stomach in a way that makes her look slightly deranged. She never notices- maybe because she really is deranged. She really is broken.

She doesn't know why she keeps coming back. She's addicted to Claire's body, maybe. She's a little in love with the way the girl keeps destroying it and then piecing it back together again. What she really wants- _aches_ for- is to jolt that body. Ripple it with blue waves jumping from her fingertips and watch it crackle and burn beneath her. Watch that unending expanse of tan skin and golden hair fry to a fucking crisp, black smoke drifting up into the air.

What she really wants- _needs_ –is to touch that body. Feel it ripple beneath her fingers, watch that unending expanse of tan skin and golden hair twist underneath her, sweat dripping from their bodies.

She's sick of all the wanting.

She can't hurt Claire if she wants to. She figured that out pretty damn fast. Unfortunately, it doesn't go both ways. And in Elle's case, that pain isn't even the stupid physical kind. Her pain twists something in her chest that she won't put a name to. Honestly, she doesn't really think its there. Like a phantom limb or something- her grandfather had one of those.

But then something like this happens and that whole fantasy where Claire catches on fire in front of her, contorting in pain and agony and screaming and _hurting_- well, that comes back into play. His hands are all over her. Elle can't look away, even as more skin is bared, as fingers delve. She stares, fascinated by the mess of it all, by the harsh breath and grasping hands, and by the ferocity building up in her own chest.

_(Just say: "I want you, just exactly like I used to."  
_'_Cos baby this is only bringing me down.)_

And then- is she pushing him away? But Elle can't really see. She's too far away. She squints, her arms drop down, and she watches Claire grapple with the boy above her. Watches the girl who can't be hurt fight for her life.

Elle doesn't do anything. That reaction isn't left in her instincts.

Then again, maybe she just likes to watch the cheerleader burn- her muscles straining, breath coming in short gasps.

It's over so quickly. A clumsy shove and Claire falls, her head tipping unnaturally. Elle waits for her to get back up and the boy to go running off. Waits for her body to meld back together, sewn up like an old rag doll. She keeps waiting. She watches the guy kneel to the ground, fist against his mouth. She moves away from the tree, catches sight of a dark red wetness staining the dirty cement.

Claire isn't getting back up.

Elle's desperate again, a feeling so closely connected with Claire that she thinks it may be love- this anxious, painful, adrenaline-drenched emotion. Love is supposed to hurt, right? This hurts. This fucking hurts. Her eyes turn on the boy, electricity blooming between her veins so rapidly that it almost catches her off guard. It almost escapes her control. It pools between her ribs, drenched from every resource, _buzzing_. She is going to shock his heart from his body, scorch it into nothing but a black spot on the ground. His hair is going to stand on end, his nerves are going to _wail._

He's bending beside Claire, pulling off her clothes. Elle starts toward him, her skin tinted faint blue, her eyes crackling. He's pulling Claire off the cement, dragging her over a grassy hill. Elle follows.

They pass into the woods, Elle unwilling to attack until the boy has put Claire down. They reach a shallow creek, moonlight waving gently across the rocks and leaves, tiny yellow flowers blooming around the edges. The boy tramples them. Elle's fingers spark.

He leaves her half-naked body strewn across the creek bed, feet resting on the yellow flowers, face tilted into the water. And then he sprints away.

Elle starts to follow, but she can't leave _her_. Can't leave her alone. Fuck, it _rips_ into her chest. It physically stalls her barely a few feet away. She doesn't fucking _understand_. She can't turn around, can't look, can only watch the boy dodge through shady trees and into the black night. She hits the ground, knees dropping into the dirt.

_She_ wails.

Her fingers dig into damp soil, flexing through roots and blades of grass. It builds, it builds, until it flies out of her and into the ground, into the sky, a jagged streak of painful blue light against a black night, a wail of pain following its path. It doesn't explode, it _empties_.

She doesn't _fucking understand_.


	3. Manhattan

_**Manhattan.**_

_(We're gonna fuel the fire, gonna stoke it up.)_

There's no threat left in her body. She's struggling to work up enough energy to control her muscles, her limbs, and there's none left to lash out with. She thinks he knows it, too, because he leaves her alone. He dumps her in the front seat and doesn't bother tying her back up.

She's still sparking a little irregularly, light blue shocks escaping her palms. She's careful not to touch the metal parts of the car. She's careful not to glance around. She's careful about the way she breathes, about the thump of her heart, about the path her thoughts are making.

She's with the _enemy_.

And her skin still feels damp- she's afraid she'll never be dry, not with wet electricity running through her blood. There's a ghost of a shiver threading between her muscles, making her twitch. Her feet _ache_; they're burnt in small spots, cherry red and blistering.

But the crazy thing? She's never been more alive. Her eyes are wide, her heart is pumping. She's on the edge. She's prepared- like a good agent for the Company. She's never been a good agent. Proficient, maybe. But dedicated? Fuck, she would sell all the Company's secrets if she didn't know it would get her in more trouble than it was worth. See, they think Elle is already more trouble than she's worth. And now there's Mr. Bennet telling her that all that trouble, all those holes bored into her brain, all the things she doesn't _get_, it's all her Daddy's fault.

She sparks again.

Mr. Bennet glances over warily but he keeps driving. Elle wonders if the pain and the knowledge only mean so much because they come from Claire Bennet's father. There's a betrayal in there that she attaches to Claire, that makes her feel small and pointless. Elle shoves her hands between her knees and fizzles into her skin.

They're going to see Claire.

It's been months, maybe. _Longer,_ she thinks. She doesn't keep track of time very well. She judges by how thick the glass has grown inside her chest, by how bland the voices, the sounds, the sights are. She judges by a dull ache.

They're going to see Claire.

She hopes there's not some guy who can read minds hanging around. She's a little bit in love with almost everything about Claire Bennet, and she doesn't want that getting out. It wouldn't matter anyway, she muses, because she would blacken him before the words could leave his mouth.

Mr. Bennet stops the car. Opens his door and heads toward hers.

Elle is careful not to meet his eyes. She's afraid that if he looks inside, he'll see something he'll recognize.

_(We're gonna hunt to kill, gonna skin the hide.  
__A yelp and a scream and away I ride.)_

They step in front of Mr. Bennet's car like they're in some old Western, facing off on a forgotten dustbowl of a street. Her bonds scratch at her wrists, pull at her skin. He's got his hand on her shoulder, pushing her forward, and she complies, trying to steady her footsteps. Keeping her head high even though her eyes are watering.

She's shaken, knocked off her axis, knocked on her ass. She smoothes it over with fury. She drowns her insecurities with a current in her veins. She's burning to slice through the bonds around her wrists, to lash out at the man who holds her in place with a heavy hand. To attack what she doesn't quite understand. She's finally letting her anger take her over.

It's not a pretty sight.

When she sees her father with Claire, blue electricity balls between her fingers. She clenches her hands. She's jealous, but embarrassed and ashamed, desperate and clinging, disappointed. She's everything but it means nothing, it feels like nothing. They mean nothing. When they pass each other, Claire's navy eyes bore into her own. It's like nothing she's ever imagined, it's like everything she's ever been- only inverted, twisted. It terrifies her, it fascinates her. It stops her heart for a long second, that image of distortion and the way she moves past it, so close to it. She doesn't _breathe_.

Then there's a _whoof_ of air behind her and she fries the clasps on her hands, lets them fall to the ground. She spins to see Claire flying a hundred feet in the air, wrapped in the arms of some boy, staring straight up at the sky. She has a need, a sudden instinct to tear the girl right back down and it becomes tied within her training to capture, to kill.

She needs Claire to hit the ground.

A rush of power, a ball of energy that _drains_ her, then a thrust of her arms, and the two are hurtling back down. Elle can't take her eyes off the sight, though her head is _pounding_. There's a thrill when Elle realizes a part of her has touched Claire, has shot through her. Claire's like some fallen angel, with a dim halo framing her body, deserting her skin. Elle is some kind of fascinated.

She doesn't glance away until Claire is struggling to stand, pure fury on her face, and that's only because there's a bullet ripping through her shoulder and she's spinning toward the dirt, crashing into sand, catching a last glimpse of Mr. Bennet's grave face. The pain is pathetic compared to the wet volts that burned through her a few hours ago, but the surprise is breathtaking. She almost feels _betrayed_.

Her daddy's beside her. There's another gun, another shot. A scream, a thud, and Elle's eyes are wide and scared, but then she has to close them because the sun is crawling between her eyelashes and bathing her shoulder in dampness and the ground is spinning into her face.

The last thing she sees is a blur of midnight blue shining wetly in the late afternoon sun.

_(And every drop that spills on every plot of ground.  
It's all for you and what you found.)_


	4. Sex on Fire

_**Sex on Fire.**_

_(All the commotion has people talking.)_

Claire's face is turning bright, angry red-she can feel it behind her ears- and she just knows her dark blue eyes are turning deeper and darker, that her eyebrows are scrunched together, that she's _shaking_, she just doesn't know why it feels _wrong_. She knows the reason behind all of it- and it's a damn good reason, one that makes tears burn behind her lashes, makes her stomach turn- but it all makes her so uncomfortable. Like she can't breathe. Like the burning in her face is something other than fury and the thumping in her chest isn't anger.

What the fuck?

She can see her father's face like he's standing right before her even though she knows he's gone. Except Elle Bishop is right where he should be, all wide eyes and a smirk, all crossed arms and high heels. Banishing Noah's image- the one that's been ingrained behind Claire's eyes since his death. And it's _pissing _her_ off_.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Her voice is harsh and shaking like her fingers, but Elle's eyes light up at the sound. She shifts her injured shoulder, wrapped carefully in a blue sling, and raises her eyebrows.

"I came to watch the sunset."

Claire's hands are still dusty with her father's ashes when she shoves them against Elle's shoulders, pinning her against the car, lashing out. Her heart is beating wildly against her chest again, begging to get away, leaving her half-dizzy and burning. Her face is inches from Elle's and the older girl's wide eyes take up all her vision. She has to pull back, has to move away, because she's being torn in the opposite direction. She's tilting forward.

"Watch who you're shoving pom-pom." Elle snarls, gingerly moving her right shoulder. Claire feels West's hands on her back, against her waist, pulling her away.

"Claire-don't." He mutters near her ear, but she shrugs him off.

"This isn't fair." She spits, but the words break, they shiver as they leave her tongue. She wants to _fight_. She needs to release the ache broiling her blood and twisting inside her stomach, but she can't do it to _Elle_. She can't think of anyone who looks more fragile, who burns like clear crystal. She's so angry it's spinning in her stomach, crystallizing beneath her skin, but when she looks at Elle the whole emotion is reversed. She feels tender, wrapped up in hate.

"Welcome to life." The girl laughs, leaning back against the car. The leftover shards of Claire's heart grind in her chest, crunching painfully. Everything is spinning beyond her reach. She needs a reason.

"Come on Claire, we gotta go." Sandra takes a step closer. Claire moves away.

"No mom, we don't." She takes another step toward Elle and feels almost justified when the blonde inches backwards. The anger is still burning through her veins. "We can tell the world what they did, how they kidnapped me and killed my father." The sentence tastes sour. Claire is centimeters away from Elle now and she can see the red stain of a slushee on the girl's lips.

"You have no proof. No one would believe you." Elle smirks, but she shifts her injured arm closer. Claire wonders if she could turn that arm, pull it until it snapped; she wonders how long it would take for Elle to attack and she wonders why the girl hasn't.

"You're probably right." She answers, and there's a thought crossing her mind, teasing her imagination. Her voice hardens. "I guess I'm just gonna have to show them," For half a moment, she thinks about hitting Elle, considers making her pay for her part in Noah's death. Her hand doesn't respond though, can't carry out the notion, and it splits through the car window instead. _Crack_. Elle jumps and glass shatters around their feet. Claire's knuckles are broken.

"I'll show everyone what I can do." Claire says, her voice dangerously low. She lifts her hand, glass moving out of the skin and clinking to the ground, bones mending beneath the blood. It fucking hurts, but her face is blank.

Elle straightens up, then, and they're face to face, nose to nose. Breathing the same air. Claire is burning again, certain and assured.

"Once the secret's out, you won't be able to _touch_ me or my family." Claire's hand drops to her side and the blood hardens on her fingers. "You'll be the ones running."

Elle doesn't blink. She doesn't respond and her eyes don't twitch. She just keeps staring at Claire in way that's unnerving, almost challenging. Their faces are centimeters apart and Claire feels a familiar urge that throws her so off she stops breathing. Her assurance ebbs and her skin starts to tingle. It occurs to her that she's much too close to the older girl.

She takes a step back. She wavers, a little hesitant and a little confused.

Elle still doesn't respond.

_(Lay where you're laying, don't make a sound.  
__I know they're watching- they're watching.)_

She's back, again.

It's her own personal masochist instinct that forces her to return to where it all happened, to see it all over again. She walks toward the beach, ditches her shoes at the parking lot, heads for the place where she let go of her father.

It's the fear, the terror building inside her that forces her to return to where it all made sense. The knowledge that she's not strong enough to make it right or stop it from ever happening again. She passes the boardwalk and aims for the rocks.

The ground shifts under her bare feet. A million crystals giving way, crumbling beneath her skin, pressing into dents and ridges. She scrunches her toes just to feel the sand slide between them. She draws a careful shape into the ground, her actions illuminated by reflected moonlight and pale sand.

She's stalling. She knows it.

Elle's at the end of the beach. She's lying spread-eagled on the sand, her feet pointing toward the ocean and the waves. There's a hoodie pulled over her hair and it's almost past dusk, but Claire knows it's her.

She's sparkling blue and electric, tiny arcs crawling all over her body.

Claire doesn't want to walk over there.

She's afraid that the older girl will see right through her, she's afraid of the burning that confuses her actions when Elle is around. She's kind of angry, yeah. It's cloudy and it makes her dizzy. She's angry that the girl who helped kill her father is sitting on sand ingrained with his ashes, is five feet away from water that carries pieces of him. She's still angry from earlier in the afternoon and it's all she has.

She's afraid that she can't fix what has happened. She's doubting her every action and she thinks maybe Elle can draw some confidence out of her. She needs some _meaning_ now, something to shove back. There's an uncomfortable rustle in the back of her mind that suggests it's more than that, but she pushes it away. At least Elle makes her feel, makes her _burn_. Those pale blue eyes seem to _slice_.

And anyway, she doesn't have much control over her feet at this point.

Ten feet away from Elle, the sand crunches under Claire's weight. Elle's head whips in her direction. The older girl's hand splays out against the sand automatically, her fingers digging in. Her skin turns blue.

But she doesn't attack.

"What the fuck are you doing?" She was supposed to sound angrier than that. The emotion from earlier in the afternoon has dulled. Claire feels the worst kind of invincible, the best kind of suicidal.

"Sleeping." Elle says, and there's something like childish defiance in her voice.

Claire almost laughs.

"On a beach?" She asks. She's annoyed that she's not meaner, not slicing the blonde to pieces or punching things, but she can't form the feeling. She hesitates a couple inches away, shifting one bare foot through the shards of ground. Edging dangerously close to Elle's hand. Apparently Elle isn't going to respond, because the girl just looks up at her, motionless.

"What are you doing?" Elle echoes the question, stressing different words. She doesn't seem put off by Claire, but her fingers are still pushed into the sand and Claire knows they're itching to release a million volts of pure electricity, to send it ripping into her body.

She'd almost welcome it.

"Walking."

They hesitate, caught in the implausible connection snaking between them. Elle keeps staring, eyes locked onto Claire, and it's kind of freaking her out. It's kind of making her pulse race. She is so pulled, so _torn_ toward the older girl. Toward the intensity running through her eyes and the insults rolling off her tongue. She's temptation in the body, in the blood. She might just be a reflection in the water, barely there and wavering.

"Do you wanna get out of here?"

Claire isn't sure the words have left her mouth until she sees Elle's blue eyes widen. Until she sees Elle's fingers twitch almost imperceptibly in the sand, until she feels the slightest shock tingle in her ankles, up her calf. She tenses up.

But Elle nods.

_(The dark of the alley, the break of the day.  
__Ahead while I'm driving.)_

They're not in Costa Verde anymore.

Elle sped for half an hour on the interstate, the radio barely muffling the tension between them, the night a splash of darkness that spanned the horizon. Claire thinks they both know what's going to happen because in her mind it's inevitable. She doesn't know if they're drawn together by the kidnappings, or the powers, or the eerie reflection in each other's eyes, but her body is thrumming with energy. She keeps sneaking glances over at the blonde. She wants her to talk, taunt, _bite_. She wants an emotion to lash out at, she wants crystal blue eyes she can glare into.

All she gets is The Kooks blaring from the speakers: _you're so naïve_.

She ignores the irony.

Elle pulls into the motel parking lot Claire points out and turns off the ignition, leaving them in tense silence. Having Elle so close is disconcerting, like it was earlier, like a heady warmth that invades her nerves. Like everything she's ever wanted, every dirty scene she thought up in her dreams. Like a firing of electrical impulses.

It's like nothing she can obtain.

"I'm sorry about-" Elle starts uncertainly. But Claire speaks suddenly, cutting her off.

"You wanna get a room?" She asks, her body angled toward the other girl. She wants to steal a piece of Elle, wants to brand on the blonde's body, wants some sort of revenge for her father's death. She wants the pain she knows it's going to cause, she wants the wake up call. And, in a way that disgusts her, she desperately wants Elle to send her reeling, to blow her insides to pieces with a million shots of electricity, to kill _her_.

To _kill_ her.

She wants to be held. She wants to be loved.

Elle nods, and her eyes glitter with something Claire doesn't want to identify.

_(Oh, we're still the greatest. The greatest.)_

Claire stands lookout while Elle twitches her fingers, her face a flicker of sudden blue and white. When the door clicks open, they hurry inside. They feel like nothing can touch them. They feel slightly ridiculous, with pounding hearts and prickling skin. Before the whole thing can slip away, can slide almost out of her reach, Claire grabs Elle's shoulder. It's the first time she's touched the older girl without intending to hurt her and it's awkward and crude, and needy. It's forceful. It burns, hot skin under thin cloth under hard fingers. She turns Elle toward her and avoids her light eyes, focuses on that soft mouth.

Elle smirks.

"Shut up." Claire growls, and there's a husk to her voice she wasn't expecting. She presses close, pushes her fingers into Elle's waist, leans forward. When she kisses Elle her heart slides out of her chest, pools in the bottom of her stomach. Her body gives her away. Her skin is on _fire_. Her heart it racing, her touch is rough, her mind is blurry.

The anger comes back.

"I didn't say anything." Elle mutters, pushing her hand under Claire's shirt. She presses a biting kiss into Claire's jaw and her fingers glide up.

Claire ignores the words- or tries to, fights against the goose bumps trailing after Elle's fingers- and works her fingers on the buttons down Elle's shirt, wants the girl naked and vulnerable. Doesn't know if that's even possible. She pulls Elle's shirt over the sling and drops it on the ground, slides her nails against bared flesh.

She presses close again, stomach to stomach, mouth to mouth, and curves her hands against the small of the Elle's back, down toward the rough material of the blonde's jeans. Claire curls her thumbs beneath the band for a second, then pulls back and pushes Elle onto the bed.

Elle grunts when she hits the mattress, her hurt shoulder bouncing hard. "Fuck." She breathes, but her eyes are sparkling.

Claire crawls on top of her, hands searching. She bites at Elle's collarbone, leaves an angry red mark. Her fingers fumble with the zipper and Elle reaches down, but Claire pushes her hands away. She finally yanks the jeans down, roughly, pushes them to the ground, and crawls back onto Elle.

For the first time, she meets Elle's eyes. Claire's heart is pounding obviously against her chest, her breath is short, her hands are shaking. She's hovering over the older girl, hands braced on either side of a blonde head, knees split around a slender waist.

Elle's eyes are wide, her pupils large. She's only in her underwear, and she suddenly seems vulnerable, open, beneath Claire. Her chest rises and falls with each deep breath. Her sling hangs off one shoulder. She pushes up a little.

"Take off your shirt." Her voice is raspy and commanding, and slightly hesitant. As if she's not sure she's earned the right to ask. The words puff against Claire's chin. She crosses her arms and pulls the material over her head, off her skin, her face blank. Elle grins and moves suddenly to kiss Claire _hard,_ hands still digging into the mattress, legs hanging off the bed.

Claire bites her, _hard_.

She yelps and shocks Claire for the first time since they entered the room, and it kills the nerves in the younger girl's cheek until they piece back together. Claire grins. Elle tilts her head curiously. She experiments, slides her fingers across the girl's bare stomach, blue arcs crackling between them and leaving a trail of burnt-black skin in their wake.

Claire shakes.

She wants to _hurt_, wants to hurt _Elle_, wants pain in this more than anything. She wants to _ache_. She skims her hand up Elle's neck, tangles her fingers in straight blonde hair. Elle burns her again. They fall into a mess of painful actions, scratching and shocking and panting against each other. Pushing under cloth and stretching hands across skin, possessing and punishing and sprinting toward something- building.

_(Soft lips are open. Them knuckles are pale.  
__Feels like you're dying. You're dying.)_

The sheets are the only things left on the bed. One corner smolders dangerously, smoky gray and half-ash. They spread out on the other side of the mattress. Elle is crackling uncontrollably beside Claire, sending an unending white-blue current into her, one that stains her skin black, illuminates it with sickly white light. Her blood is broiling, her skin really is on fire. She stares at the ceiling and Elle stares at her and they both ignore the fact that the ache doesn't feel quite right, doesn't _sting_ like they think it should (it _warms_, and who saw that coming?), and they should have left a long time ago.

Elle's fingers skate up Claire's stomach, down her thighs, the blackened skin healing almost instantly, Claire's power enhanced by the adrenaline racing through her. Elle watches the process with an awed look on her face. She seems almost fascinated. She ups the volts and flips over onto Claire, kneels above her.

Claire finally meets Elle's eyes and glares, disgust written across her features that doesn't spread into her eyes.

"Get off." She says, and shoves Elle back onto the bed. She sits up, pushes the sheets off her legs, starts looking for her underwear. Behind her, Elle chuckles.

"What, no round two, pom-pom?" Elle smirks, stretching out on the bed. Claire ignores her. "Wouldn't your daddy be proud." Elle murmurs, eyes running over Claire's body. Claire whirls around, her body instantly tense, her head held high.

"Shut up." She spits, clutching her shirt between her fingers. She feels furious but out of her element. Elle looks like she couldn't be more at home, naked and bruised on a motel bed.

"Did it help?" Elle asks, and this time her tone is curious and almost caring. A little urgent. Claire is so _tired_, so close to breaking apart under the pressure.

"No."

Claire spots her underwear on the headboard behind Elle. She hesitates to retrieve it. The older girl follows her gaze and plucks it up with one finger. Tosses it across the room.

"I'm sorry." Elle says, and her tone is indecipherable. Her eyes are crystal clear again, and without sparks and arcs dancing across her skin she looks almost human. She looks almost caring.

And Claire hates herself for it, knows she will regret it all in the morning, knows it will be imprinted in her mind as the night she lost the last of everything, but she crosses the room again. She crawls into the bed, wraps what's left of the sheet around her and Elle, and curls up in the girl's arms.

She's almost surprised when she feels Elle's arms around her.

She's almost relieved.

_(Hot as fever, rattling bones.  
__But it's not forever. But it's just tonight.)_


	5. Cold Desert

_**Cold Desert.**_

_(I'm on the corner waiting for a light to come on.  
__That's when I know that you're alone.)_

Claire tosses her phone back across the console. It bounces against the plastic of the passenger door and hits the seat with a thump, rolls down into the crease. She settles back and stretches her legs toward the pedals, curves her arms above her head. It got dark fast, the sun melting into the sea, and now she's left under the shadow of the streetlights, staring over at a crumbling old warehouse. She blinks twice, fighting away the blur in her eyes.

There are files littering her passenger seat. Haunted faces that stare back at her, a million unimportant words swimming beneath their dark eyes. They all look the same. They all act the same. Twisted, caught up, racing against the inevitable. Fighting against the turning of the tide, the shift of the plates.

They make her sick.

She pushes the papers to the floor and they slide and flip over each other, litter the floor in a layer of white. She sighs, then grabs her keys out of the ignition and throws open the door. A wave of cool night air meets her. It chills the sweat dripping down her neck, sliding between her fingers, slick behind her knees. Her shoes scrape against broken cement.

A broken padlock creaks on the wide door of the warehouse. Claire gently eases inside, barely pushing the metal door. It squeals anyway, rusty from lack of use and damp desert mornings. She winces at the sound and closes the door carefully. Her shoes slide almost silently against the slick floor, and she's near invisible in the massive, unlit room. The walls go on and on.

There's a light spilling onto the ground, creating a puddle of gold at the far end of the room. A rusty, dented door stands half-open and the fuzzy noise of a tv reaches her ears. She hesitates, but just barely, with an instinct that wants her to turn back, with a quicker thump of her heart. She gets it every single time. It never manages to stop her. She's in the _zone_, every inch buzzing with nerves and excitement, every heartbeat heavy against her chest.

She stops just inside the light, lets the rays paint her skin golden and glance off her blue eyes. Her eyes flick around the room, just drinking it in, just taking inventory. It's this moment, right now, that keeps her going, that overrides her self-preservation instincts. It's this instant of calm and assurance, this knowing.

It's this _relief_.

"Wasn't sure you were gonna make it, cheerleader."

It's been weeks and Claire still can't deciphire Elle's dry tone.

"I did." She answers. The bitterness has been washed out of her voice by hours beneath Elle's hands, by bolts swimming through her veins. By the solid thump of Elle's heart beneath Claire's cheek, by the quake in Elle's voice when she rolls beneath Claire's fingers. It's so much, too much. She buries it.

"Huh." Elle finally turns toward her and grins, her eyes dancing. "Are we going out tonight?"

Claire's face is blank. It always takes her a few minutes to drop back into this half-reality. To let go of every concern she wears on her shoulders like a cross, like a crown. Like a justification. Her eyes sweep over Elle's face, down across her grey sweatpants and plain white tee, over her simple ponytail. She looks so gorgeous in moments like these that Claire almost mistakes her for someone touchable, someone reachable. She almost mistakes their relationship for something that might help.

The illusion doesn't last long, but it's so bittersweet.

"Yeah." Claire answers, her keys still swinging from her fingers. "Let's go."

She turns around and leaves, but she'd be lying if she said she doesn't pray Elle will follow.

She's always scared she'll be left behind.

_(It's cold in the desert. Water never sees the ground.  
__Special ones walk on without a sound.)_

Claire watches while Elle spins bolts from her fingers, zaps tiny lizards and big rocks, shatters them into spinning shards that impale the dirt, send it flying up in dusty clouds. The car headlights bathe everything in slightly surreal white light, throw deep shadows from their bodies, but Elle still glows. Her eyes still burn. Her blonde hair falls in waves around her face, swinging with the flick of her fingers and the curl of her arm. Her electric streaks paint the dirt blue, leave white-hot imprints in Claire's vision. A cold wind twists between them and Elle only burns brighter.

They're sharing a quilt spread over jagged rocks and rough grass, but they're at opposite ends. It's not all Claire's fault- Elle never seems comfortable with simple touch, simple closeness. It works for Claire, because Elle makes her _burn_, makes every nerve wail and the closer they get the stronger it stings. Her fingers tremble when she finally reaches for the cloth of Elle's jacket and that manifestion of weakness, that apparent lack of control, almost halts her advances. Her relationship with Elle is a series of almosts, of hesitations. A rejection of instinct.

She tightens and tugs, presses her mouth to the older girl's before either of them can process it.

The hot energy is still spilling out of Elle's fingertips, but it reverses course. It crackles down Claire's throat, through her stomach when Elle presses her hands there. It fries her insides, it burns deep, boils places and organs that can't be seen. It's _excruciating_.

Claire wonders what she looks like, if her skin glints with white-hot energy, melts off her bones. Wonders if Elle's eyes are open because she can't stop hers from closing. Elle's tongue is sliding down the column of her neck, burning against her skin and she can't tell if its volts or just wet heat, can't tell where she starts and stops and whether the burning in her skin is electricity or arousal and that's why she does this, she thinks.

That right there.

That, and maybe because she is so guilty. Because, somewhere during it all, Elle stops sparking. It fizzles out to silence, broken by short pants and low moans Claire knows are coming from her own mouth. And she tries to forget this part, where there's nothing but their skin and a loss of abilities, damp air trailing around them. Because that makes it so much. Too much. Her back arches, her hips beneath Elle's small fingers, and she breathes into dusty desert air:

"Make it hurt."

Her voice is caught in her throat, roughened by dirt and want, and then it hits her. Rolls up her body, the climax and the waves of white hot heat and then she knows Elle's not on top of her anymore because she curls uncontrollably, she feels herself slipping away. At one point she catches a glimpse of a face between the streaks of light but she tells herself its just a delusion, just a mistake, god please let it be just the sweat in her eyes. Because she sees Elle with her eyes squeezed shut, half-naked with her knees against her chest, her hand pointed at Claire as lightning cuts from her fingers and through the air, dancing across Claire's body.

And it makes Claire want to scream.

_(Hand over your heart, let's go home)_

They flicked off the light on the way out the door so when they get back to the warehouse the inside is bathed in dim moonlight and grey shadows, all metal and cement and secrets. Elle walks in front and Claire knows this is where she should leave, maybe say a goodbye if she's in the mood, but that's not what happens.

It's the guilt slipping into everything. Like the swirl of ashes in crashing waves, the dark mixing with the clean, dirtying what's left over. It's the tremble in her bones. It's the hesitation. It's the wet, hot press of lips and teeth, of legs and fingers, it's heavy and it's cold.

She sees her father, with his hands tight against her shoulders, his eyes dark and serious. Warning her of needles and tests and dangers that he's protected her from, dangers that she half wants to discover. He's coloring her clean world with dark shadows, always a step away, a stumble. He loves her so much that she can feel it laced through her bones, tying her up.

And then she sees Elle with that lightning in her eyes, hands tight on Claire's waist, teeth caught on her bottom lip. She sees the results of those tests, those needles, and the image isn't as pure black as she thought it would be. It's splintered, like someone dropped it on the ground and it shattered, like Elle didn't have anyone to protect her. Like she has broken lines and squiggles where Claire thought she would be smooth, dark glass.

And Claire's guilty. Because she doesn't deserve this more than Elle. She doesn't deserve the unblemished skin, the untouched mind. She thinks she's been cheating, somehow, to be so smooth, so clean. The things that roll off her manage to slide through Elle's cracks.

She couldn't ever really listen to her dad because it was like believing in a summary. She always needed the whole story, the sharp truth. But she understands now, _believes,_ because she sees her blessings in Elle's empty spaces.

She's still so young, but there's that thing about seeing too much and growing up too fast.

There's also that thing about being careful what you wish for but when she's wishing this _hard_ it's impossible to be careful about anything.

It's all that behind her hands when she slides them down Elle's arms, twists them in between Elle's fingers. Elle's eyes are wide, and Claire knows it's because this isn't how it should go. This isn't how it's been. It's always Elle ripping her apart, Claire sewing back up, Claire escaping into the shadows and the real world. It isn't Claire leaning in, pulling in, sweet and soft. It's never sweet and soft.

It's never about Elle.

Elle's eyes are wide but she moves in and kisses Claire like she actually knows what's going on, like she's got a handle on it, and then it's impossible for Claire to stop. Because Elle suddenly feels vulnerable beneath her fingers. For the first time since there was skin on skin, now that Claire no longer wants it, she sees the girl falling to pieces in front of her. Layers peeling away.

They stumble back toward Elle's tiny room, awkward with new actions and reactions. Claire hits her wrist on the door frame and it's cool to the touch, but then that wrist is halfway up Elle's shirt and they're tumbling onto the fold out couch and rumpled white sheets. This time, Claire doesn't shove the older girl on the bed, she _presses_. It's unbelievably gentle. Elle's eyes are so searching that Claire's heart thunders in her chest, because _what the fuck is this_? She kisses Elle's jaw and she feels so fiercely protective, like she wants to shield Elle from everyone, smooth over the cracks and the splinters.

It's fucking _ridiculous_.

But there's that image of Elle with her eyes shut tight, her shoulders trembling, and it's that filthy guilt. So she pushes Elle's shirt over her head and trails behind the cloth with kisses that pause at Elle's collarbone. Elle's always been fragile but thrumming, and now's no different. She just doesn't seem like a threat anymore. Claire nips at Elle's stomach as her fingers glide up thighs and she feels the muscle clench beneath her tongue.

"What are you doing?" Elle breathes, her back arching, a hint of sweet torture in her tone. Claire sees her hands twisted in the sheets, wanting but never touching, separate and caught up.

"I don't know." Claire answers, pressing her forehead into Elle's skin, panting hot breaths against her waist. Elle tilts her head back into the mattress, squeezes her eyes shut. Claire catches her breath and then pushes her mouth into Elle's hip, bites and soothes with the sweep of a tongue. She can't stop now. Her fingers tug on the zipper of Elle's jeans.

(_Jesus don't love me. No one ever carried my load.  
__I'm too young to feel this old.)_

She hides in her car, biting her nails. Her bangs fall over one side of her face but it doesn't matter because its too dark to see anything anyway. She stares at the warehouse door for hours- honestly, hours. It's been a week, it's been longer than they're usually apart, it's been terrible but Claire's been having dreams. And when did they become a _they_? And the dreams spin all her thoughts in circles because in her dreams Elle giggles sadistically and curls little shocks up Claire's arms and doesn't remember what happened a week ago. Or she laughs and teases Claire, says breath-takingly painful things and then grins, places her hands on her hips.

And Claire's acting like a stupid teenager but she embraces it. Because after all the responsibility and all the death she likes the old drama. She's tearing her though processes to pieces, replaying Elle's reactions, Elle's eyes, cataloging each moment so that she can go back and obsess over it again. She's analyzing the age and the years spent in research labs and she's wondering at the _power_ in it all. The twitch of Elle's hips when Claire slides her fingers inside, the flush in Elle's skin. And although she wasn't nervous the first time, she's paralyzed now.

Elle couldn't be more unpredictable if she tried and this _isn't_ a relationship and Claire is being stupid.

She doesn't owe Elle anything. She could walk away right now and nothing would change. She can forfeit all this self doubt and hesitations, all this pain and forgiveness, because she thinks she's found it now. Her reason to stand up straight. And it's _power_.

It fascinates her. She wants to dangle it over other people.

Maybe Elle's passed on the addiction.

She turns the key into the ignition again and drives away. She doesn't consciously think _'I'm not coming back_' but she never does.

(_Nobody but me_.)


	6. Closer

_**Closer.**_

(_The floor is crackling cold.  
__She took my heart, I think she took my soul_.)

Claire got her father back but Elle lost her job. Elle lost her job, but Claire got her father back. She tries to rationalize it that way, tries to make her loss Claire's gain, tries to intertwine their pasts, their futures, so that they fit together. She tries to make them fit together.

But Claire hasn't spoken to her since _that_ happened. Since whatever _that_ was. Elle almost wishes for bruises, or bites, for some proof that it was real. She thinks it wasn't dream because she never has them, but she never had a lot of things before Claire. She sits on the cement floor, just inside the warehouse door, and stares unwaveringly at the spot where Claire's car was. Where the girl sat for hours, staring right at the warehouse, right at Elle.

She slips her hands under her knees and leans forward. Light's falling across everything outside, spraying from the rising sun and cracking the illusions she spent all night staring at. She can still see Claire's car there but it's dark and shadowy, it doesn't blend into this early morning. Her fingers tighten.

After a while, Elle stands up. Her muscles protest, her back aches. She brushes her bangs from her eyes. She feels so tired all the sudden that her knees weaken and her eyes flutter shut but there's electricity cutting into every bone, from fingertips to toes and she can't sleep anyway.

When she opens her eyes again everything is half blurry for a moment and she remembers twisting under Claire with the same blur in her eyes, she remembers falling apart, lacing up like she was Claire. Sheets twisted around them both, the fall of blonde hair, hands across her stomach- she can't handle the memories. The second she shuts her eyes the sight torments her because she doesn't understand a damn thing about it. The look in Claire's eyes-

It's over, but _fuck_, the loose ends are strangling her. Elle was never one for loose ends. Her fingers twitch and the gray room dances in blue light until her hand clenches into a fist, until the volts crawl back up her arm. She's half-blinded, but not just from the light.

She blanks for the next couple minutes and the scenery passes by unnoticed, a blur of cement and burnt grass.

Elle must look like a wreck because she feels like one, but almost no one notices her when she slides up to a car and pops the locks, cranks the engine. It's a long drive but she can't not take it. As she pulls onto the highway, she plays a game with herself, picking out the emotions in her head and trying to identify them. She catches _fear_, and it's slow evolution into _terror_; she recognizes _confusion _but doesn't know what to do about it.

Naming the things that control them makes people feel a bit safer and Elle supposes she's no different.

Bewilderingly, she can't file them away anymore. They're a part of her, a part of her with Claire, even if that part doesn't feel quite real anymore. Even if her brain is playing tricks, trying to convince her that Claire never existed, still doesn't. She's so far in that even if she wanted out she wouldn't be able to find a way. She thought she was so hard, so smooth, and now she's nothing but cracks and splinters, shattering leftover pieces in her wake.

She wants orders. Fuck, she needs some direction, a pointer, blinders.

Anything could send her spinning and she had to choose Claire Bennet to do the job.

_(Driven by the strangled vein.  
Showing no mercy I do it again.)_

It's a long drive and she's beyond pissed off now.

She blames Claire, she's decided, for her downfall from the Company. For the death of her father. For the string of thorns wrapped tight around her insides. She blames Claire for her rocked world, because she doesn't remember doing anything different until the young girl entered her life. She plays the long thread of events on a loop in her head and, inevitably, Claire appears at each crossroads.

They mixed their futures. And Claire walked away.

Elle needs something, some closure, some admittance from the young blonde. Some end or apology, because then maybe she can start rebuilding.

The other hand, of course, is that she kind of wants to kill Claire. Not in the forever sense- she just wants to shove her off a building, or burn her alive. To show her that she doesn't give a fuck, never did. To make them even. To feed that sharp little piece of nothing that wedged itself too close to her important parts so long ago.

She's also decided that the whole thing with Claire's hands and her gasps, in her bed with Claire's smoky eyes, has got to be a ploy, or an accident, or stupid. She's already dismissed it. She locked it away in the same place she hides her fear, right next to that desperate love. She's letting her anger take full rein and she knows what will happen, she's _anticipating _it.

It dirties her in a way she's never known.

Elle overheats the engine, leaves it smoking on the side of the road. An ominous signal of her return, a bit of dramatics her daddy always had a flair for. The dirty smoke waves in plumes behind her. _Welcome to Costa Verde!_ the sign in front of her reads.

She smirks.

_(The skies are blinking at me.  
I see a storm bubbling up from the sea.)  
_

"Hey cheerleader."

Elle's voice is bright and cheery, the same tone she's used since she was old enough to realize the extent of her looks. It still compliments them, but she can tell Claire isn't fooled. The younger girl's eyes widen, then flick back towards her house.

"What are you doing here?"

Claire angles her head up, looking toward Elle's perch in her neighbor's tree. Her voice is low and wary, with just a dash of intimidation that Elle finds amusing. Elle's anger (_shame_) is burning and she swings her feet lightly, looking past Claire toward the girl's home.

"Just sight-seeing." She grins, big and innocent. "I went to the mall." It's a trick, one she's an expert at. Showing off opposites of the emotions she's feeling. She's still surprised Claire is falling for it.

"Why are you in Costa Verde?" Claire rephrases, her voice hardening. Elle catches fear and something softer in her eyes, but she just holds onto the fear part. It makes her feel justified.

"I just told you, pom-pom." She hops down from the tree, lands lightly, and smirks as she walks toward Claire. "Miss me?" She spits, but she thinks it hurts her more than it hurts Claire. She doesn't let it show.

"Elle…" Claire's all apologetic eyes and pleading tones, and Elle suddenly realizes she never wanted admittance or anything like it.

"Fuck you, _Claire_." She uses her name like a curse. The word hardly ever leaves her lips- she doesn't let it. She regains her composure almost immediately, but she feels the break like a crack. "How's your dad doing?" Her smile returns. Claire looks hesitant.

"Elle, I didn't mean to-"

"Don't worry about it, sweetie." A ball of blue is growing between her fingertips. She's losing her fragile grip on control.

"What are you gonna do with that?" Claire says, and she takes a step forward, matching Elle's, gaining confidence. She's not scared of the electricity anymore. She probably even gets off on it. For half an instant, a wavering break like a lost tv signal, Elle sees Claire as she really is. Young and scared with a genuine ache in her eyes, a sincere lack of delusion. A little desperation. Then she morphs back into what she represents- a wrecking ball, a stupid mistake.

Elle flicks her fingers like she's ashing a cigarette and a tiny spark sputters out, dances across Claire's neck. It leaves a harsh red streak that disappears quickly. Claire's so close but Elle knows she's untouchable. Elle can only have her by hurting her, by not needing her. And, somehow, that makes perfect sense.

The tangled streaks of light and heat whipping in her hand feed a dangerous hunger spreading in her chest. She's an overwhelming mix of affection and violence and disappointment and want. She's desperately angry.

"I haven't decided yet." She makes it sound like a threat, but it's just the truth. She stops a foot from Claire and draws her eyes over the other girl's form. The lightning sizzles in her fist. She squeezes her fingers once and it dissipates instantly, sliding back between her bones.

"You shouldn't be here." Claire recognizes the fallen shield immediately and presses closer, crossing a couple inches.

"Neither should you." Elle responds. She can't even look at the younger girl so she stares over at the Bennet house instead. The electricity is getting in her brain, mixing with her instincts.

"This is my home." Claire states, her face blank

"Then why don't you sleep at it?" Elle spits back, her eyes darting to Claire's face for a moment. She's forgotten how young they both are, but it comes rushing back when Claire rolls her eyes.

"Fuck you, Bishop." Claire backs away, her eyes glinting, her arms folding across her chest. Elle's eyes flash once and all the power hiding beneath her skin explodes out of her, drives into Claire. It's so bright, so hot, and so fast that she misses the death part, only watches Claire crumple to the ground. It's not Claire anymore, just a mess of charred flesh and bones. She shouldn't have done that.

She thinks maybe that's all she was waiting for.

She has to run, she knows instantly. The Bennets will be out any minute, drawn by a blue-white blast, and then she's dead, she's totally screwed. She turns and sprints, doesn't spare a glance backwards. Her feet hit hot pavement hard and the sun beats around her but she can't feel it. She's out of the neighborhood in minutes, crosses a main street, barely makes it onto a bus. She can still feel something behind her, pressing her farther, faster. She gasps a breath, doesn't dare confirm her fear by looking behind her.

It's over.

It still feels unfinished.

Something is running right behind her.

That's when she knows she needs out. Out of fucking California, out of the United States, off the fucking continent. Spain or Luxembourg, somewhere new. Somewhere she can find a purpose, a new fix. It occurs to her that maybe she can outrun Claire Bennet.

Maybe if she moves fast enough.

The bus jostles beneath her and she reaches up for a new handhold, a familiar smirk crossing her features.

_(What do you think of me?  
Where am I now? Baby, where do I sleep?)_


	7. Notion

**_Notion._**

_(I just wanted to know if I could go home.  
__Been rambling day after day, and everyone says they don't know.)_

Elle holds the sharp paper edges of the card between her thumb and forefinger. It's curled and burnt on one side from a sudden flicker of electricity that escaped her palm. She's stared at the name for so long it's just a string of ink and impressions now. Just dots and dashes. She presses a little harder and the card bends beneath the pressure, a tiny crease forming beneath the words, a little imperfection on the clear white.

She feels the energy creeping back between her bones. She hasn't called it, hasn't clenched that strange little muscle that isn't really a part of her at all but still singes white-hot volts through her fingers. She hasn't asked for it but the lightning curls right beneath her skin, cutting through bone and nerve and she has to shove the card into her pocket to save it from the fire.

Elle's hunched over, her palm flat across the monitor and pushing more electricity than a power circuit could hold. The lamps are flickering around her, shooting flashes of eerie light across her face that wrestle with the blue glow of her energy. She's pathetic like that, aching from exhaustion and sickly pale when she hears familiar footsteps falter at the door.

She sucks in a breath. Forces a smile onto her face. By the time she turns in her chair, she looks almost as healthy as she ever was.

_Elle shoulders her bag once again, but it's quick to slip back down her slender shoulders and drag against her arm. She sighs and her throat sparks with tightly controlled energy. She needs a release, quickly. She needs to stay drained because otherwise she's gonna have more trouble than she can currently handle. She's already running on empty, already halfway dead._

_It's takes her a few seconds to find something suitable and empty. When she slides into the phone booth, there's blue lines arcing across her fingertips. She forms a fist and they shift, circle around her curled knuckles. She flattens her right hand and presses it firmly against the side of the phone. The light reveals the bags heavy under her eyes._

_There's a noise, almost a hum but crackling with something less natural, that escapes with the electricity. Her eyes stay alert, looking for anyone who might notice the strange colors escaping a phone booth, anyone with more curiosity than she finds normal. She looks like a drug addict or a terrorist, someone hiding where they shouldn't be, where they never should have gone. She's always where she shouldn't be. Her nerves are always on end, skin prickling. Always out of place._

_A minute passes, until she's shaking on the outside, quaking on the inside. She can't take much more of this. She doesn't have room to think anymore, just time to act, just time to react. Spitting lines and forcing steps. Just time to move forward to the one place she must have been heading all her life._

_Elle slips back into the walkway between a group of tourists and a pregnant lady, her bag still hitting against her arm. The woman shoots her a glare and Elle sneers._

"_Off your hormones?" She brushes past, trying so hard not to slip a little shock the woman's way._

_She clenches her muscles and sucks in a breath, forces it back out. She's somewhere beyond tired. She's somewhere beyond sane, but she's so used to being there that another step in the wrong direction can't even faze her._

_She steps into warm sunshine and squints._

Claire hasn't stopped glaring since she first saw Elle- except, maybe, that gasp of surprise when Lyle doused the older girl, sent her reeling with sparkling explosions behind her eyes- but Elle searches for a shade of kind in the blue, anyway, a sheen of tender. She's looking because she never figured out how to stop and she knows Claire knows she's looking and she just.

Cannot stop.

For the first time in weeks her heart is calm in her chest. Her fingers are wrapped around the edge of her chair and her teeth are grinding against each other, but the beats beneath her breast are steady and assured. She is not. She is _burning_ in pain and it's becoming familiar.

She finds the softness she's searching for after a few slipped sentences, after a few broken stares. They're accidental, they're running away from her, they mean something. Her shields have melted into her.

"What if there's something wrong with all of us and they can fix it?" Claire asks, and she's running off the same fragile, naïve hope that Elle harbors, something Mr. Bennet never would have encouraged. But there's the card, tough in Elle's palm, and there's the fear that their powers are betraying them. The knowledge that they aren't in control. It's surreal that Claire is sitting across from her, gorgeous and just as scared.

"You're fine. You're perfect." Elle assures her, almost carelessly. Claire hasn't lost that vague sense of being untouchable, she's still strong and far away and Elle can see the barrier in the air. She's sure if she reached out her fingers would bump a solid plate.

"No, I'm not." Claire insists, and now her eyes are harsh again. "Whatever's happening to you, it's happening to me, too." Elle frowns.

"You're still healing aren't you?" There's only the slightest anxiety. She's tasting the power that comes from having Claire at her side. It makes her strong and it makes her brave and it makes her a little stupid.

"Yeah. But I can't feel pain." She hesitates, a quiet pause that Elle hears like a stutter. "And I think it's only a matter of time before I can't feel anything at all."

"You can't feel pain." Elle says, and she stands up, sucks air in through her teeth. Resists the urge to laugh. "I wish I had your problems, cheerleader." Claire stands, ready to argue, ready to defend, but Elle meets her eyes. "My body is screaming." She breathes. "I'm in agony." There's electricity in her eyes and it's crackling through her pupils, it's staining her skin.

"Go with me." Claire says, suddenly. She doesn't step nearer but she might as well have. Elle feels the barrier crack, like it did so many weeks ago, like it will every time they're near. "If there's a chance these people at Pinehearst can help us, we'll go together." Claire says quietly. They stand, staring, hesitant.

"All right, Dorothy. Then we're off to see the Wizard."

(_I got a notion that says it doesn't feel right.  
__Got the answer in your story today.)_

Elle picks out the airplanes from the blue sky. She traps them in her vision and details their path to the ground, eyes dropping when the wheels thunk against the cement and lifting in slow reverence as they crawl toward the sky. She doesn't quite believe that any of them will succeed- she expects them to pinwheel from the air, crashing and rolling until they _explode_, scraps of metal and tiny suitcases ricocheting past the golf carts on the landing strip, blazing into the short grass.

She feels trapped by the big glass windows but she doesn't say anything about it to Claire. Pushing her thoughts through her mouth has never been her strong suit- not when it comes to the things she wants to say. Her thoughts don't make sense. They spin circles that no one else can follow, they crawl back over each other in some twisted dance and she hasn't met anyone who can follow the beat.

Claire's silent, anyway, her lips a straight line cutting across her pretty face. Elle tries not to stare but she really wants to touch. She wants to lace their fingers together, so tight it almost hurts, stroke small knuckles and familiar fingers, wants to lure Claire into the bathroom and plant kisses along her bare collarbone. She wants skin and fire, but- for the first time in her whole life- she doesn't want to hurt Claire.

She wants _everything_ but to hurt Claire.

She's staring, again. She hasn't learned to stop. Another airplane roars to life and her eyes flick toward the window instinctively, to watch for a fiery crash or a shuddering clunk. She's not scared of the plane running into them, she's planning for it. She watches as it tilts toward the heavens, cutting through thin clouds and chasing cautious sea gulls. Then it's out of sight, a blink on the horizon, a dash of black. She looks back over at Claire just in time to catch the young girl's blue eyes staring into her own.

Elle almost blushes.

"What?" She asks, bypassing tact. Claire's eyes flick away, facing the window but too wide to be believed. Elle waits, shifting her gaze along Claire's set jaw, tracing the line of her neck. The younger girl never answers.

Their plane is called and Claire steps up and away without glancing back, but Elle sees slanted eyes and a darting gaze when they pass through gate. It rumbles through the electricity beneath her skin, this _want_ she can taste, can feel spark at the air. She's blinded herself to the memories but they swell in the background and promise things she'd forgotten she ever wanted.

Claire gives her the window seat. Their legs brush softly and Elle turns away, shielding the haze in her eyes.

The clouds begin to break apart and she waits for them to hurtle toward the ground.

_(I got a notion that says it doesn't feel right.)_

They don't speak when they walk into the hotel room with two tiny beds. Claire just tosses her stuff onto a chair and mutters something about going to get food.

"Good, I'm starving." Elle says, reaching back to tie up her hair. Claire shoots her a glance but Elle's face stays blank. The younger girl just sighs and digs into her duffel. Elle does the same, searching for the cash she nicked off an Australian tourist at the airport, her fingers passing over fake passports and euros slipped between her shoes.

When Claire slips out of the door Elle follows just as quickly. She gets another look but she figures that it's worth it.

They end up at a cheap Mexican place about a block down the road. It's all green lights and fake stucco, red and blue patterns strung across the walls, and their waiter's hair is dripping with gel. It smells better then anything Elle can imagine and she sits across from Claire, hitting her feet against the back of the booth and looking down at her menu. Sometimes, she flicks her eyes up and steals a glance, and she has an unsettling feeling that Claire is doing the same thing.

Reaching -sneaking- her hand across the table, she grabs a chip and aims toward the salsa. Her eyes stay glued to the glossy finish of the wood, suddenly nervous in this unknown territory with a sullen Claire and a twitch aching between her veins. She munches slowly and her eyes curve a path upward.

It's becoming unsurprising to find Claire staring at her like the younger girl's never seen a person before.

Claire's eyes are half-glazed, almost unnatural with something Elle wants so badly to define. Elle reads their ache like a favorite novel, like a fact because it's burned into her own gaze, like there's a law against it. She reads Claire because they are like the same person, they are like lovers who split too early on. She was what Claire is. They are lovers who split too early on. They aren't the same person, and she's lucky for that.

The look in Claire's eyes has killed her appetite, but she's still _hungry_, in a way that makes her brash. Her feet stop swinging and her eyes almost narrow, but she grabs hold of her dirty intentions and bites back suggestive words.

Claire does it for her.

"Let's just go." The blonde says, and her movements aren't rushed. She stands up and waits.

Elle is quick to follow.

(_So don't knock it, don't knock it.  
__You been here before.)_

It's the same sort of bland hotel room and the same sort of mind-reeling intoxication with each other but there are lines now. There are patterns and habits and too much familiarity. It's not new, but they could fool each other into thinking it is. Fingers trail, hands coast. Elle puts her forehead against Claire's shoulder, tugs her closer, presses her into a wall.

It's late and quiet, and their breathing echoes. The bed squeaks and a spring pokes Elle's knee so that she shifts and she's off balance and then Claire is on top, hands skimming lower and mouth growing possessive. Elle arches beneath her, body curving as a slender line of electricity rams into Claire's chest. The other girl shudders, tenses, and Elle forgets what to do.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She says, scrambling backwards and hitting the wall, clothes in messy disarray. Her face crumples and she's so distressed that she loses Claire's eyes. Then, Claire's hands are on her shoulder, a soft kiss pressed into her neck.

"It's okay." Claire murmurs. Her hands glide lower, her body moving forward. "It's okay." Elle doesn't relax for a moment because she's twisted the whole moment, she's hurt someone she didn't want to and that never happens. She's spun out. But Claire is pushing Elle's shirt higher and her mouth is fire on Elle's quivering belly and it's surprising how fast the anxiety fades away and how easily Elle's fingers slip through Claire's curls.

They twist and spin and electricity escapes Elle's pores but Claire can't feel it anyway. They're bathed in short spurts of blue light and it's pain and ecstasy like Elle's always been used to, except. There's no malice, no cruel undertones, just two people and a compromise and a continuation. Just two people and a constant.


	8. Be Somebody

_**Be Somebody.**_

[_taken to the floor with the reach to the sky_.]

The light streaming into the bathroom is sterile and surreal, almost white through the thin shower curtain. The towels are still damp and the mirror stained, but it's silent and chilly and she can _think_ in here. About what, exactly, she's still unsure; concerning what, she's terribly knowledgeable.

Her hands are shaking, smeared with someone else's blood, and she clings to a piece of porcelain. Her fingers are wrapped tight against the sink as if she can force the shivers running down her body right into the square, direct down the metal drain. Can send them rumbling through the pipes. They're terrible, these goosebumps on her arms. They make her back ramrod straight, they come from the cool air against her neck and the cold fear tight in her stomach. It's a solid brick, this fear, heavy in her heart. Icy against her chest.

Forcibly, she loosens her hands.

Her fingers splay out over the edges of the sink and she tilts her head down so she doesn't have to meet her own eyes. She blinks, seeing but not processing. It's a little thing, Elle's desperate departure, especially compared to the way Claire left. It's a little thing, this breaking apart. It should be. But maybe it's where Elle's running, and why. Maybe it's the first honest loss Claire's ever experienced and that's why it sits rough in her chest like a blockade. Like a chokehold.

She knows Peter is curious, and maybe annoyed. She knows better than to leave him by himself right now but she thought she knew better than Elle Bishop and look how everything turned out. Look how everything turned upside down. She should be running, if the glass shard sticking out of Peter's arm is any indicator, but she just needs a minute. She just needs a minute.

She left Elle there.

Didn't leave her, exactly. More like Elle left her. But she feels guilty all the same, because she's the one who drove away. She's the one who cut the final tie. She blinks hard, but there's no tears. Just a blur in her vision like dust in her eyes.

She could still fix it- she can feel the idea burning beneath her skin. She could drive back. She won't (can feel the lassitude like molasses through her veins) but she entertains the thought for a second. Thinks about walking inside, moving swift, throwing fists. Stealing Elle away.

Two knocks on the door and Peter's voice, low and concerned, edging on confused.

"Claire?"

She blinks and the sink comes back into focus, her fingers twitching against porcelain. She steps back, looks toward the locked door.

"I'll be out in a second." She answers, gaze flicking back to her reflection. Her eyes are too wide, her skin too pale. She looks so heart broken it makes her cringe. She twists the knob on the sink and it protests, squeaking angrily, before cool water spills into the basin. She fills her hands and ducks her head.

[_and i say, you can't get enough. now you can't get enough_.]

So.

This has got to be the stupidest stunt she's ever pulled, this has got to mean trouble, this _is_ trouble. This is so bad she can feel the curious twinge of fear curving in the bottom of her stomach. She can't remember a time when anything besides Claire Bennet and dumb feelings scared her. It's making her itch. She presses her fingers along her ribs.

She tips her head back against the wall and the cool cement feels nice against her hot head, feels nice compared to the burning nerves scraping against her skin. Her volts are still running, spinning, cutting. She lets them. She's not even resisting- she knows its punishment. She knows how this goes- she wrote how this goes. She's gonna sit here for a long time. She's gonna be scared for a long time and it might even get so normal that the twinge will never leave.

She knows how this goes. It doesn't stop the tremble.

Her eyes are shut, but it'd be hard to tell the difference anyway. The room is dingy and damp and the only light is coming from the electricity sparkling across her skin. It flashes behind her eyelids, too, and makes it easy to confuse distortion with reality. She's trying to confuse distortion with reality, trying to spin herself out the way Claire's hands do.

She's lost Claire. She's gonna lose herself.

And it's so much in this room- too much to pay for a dumb mistake. She's cold and hot and betrayed and beat down. There's nothing left, there's no Claire, there's an empty ache. She left. She ran. She's dead.

Minutes pass slowly, marked by the rips beneath her skin. She's tearing herself apart. She's gonna end it. If she can't help it she might as well embrace it. It's- shit, is this how it goes? There's no beat to follow, no hoops to jump, just solid thoughts set on fire by burning bones. She's crazy and not in the way she knows, not where everything hits her a weird way. She's crazy in that way where nothing hits her, where consequences and responsibilities melt away under the burn in her brain.

The door opens and he walks in and her bones catch, her joints lock, her heart stutters to a stop. She doesn't have to flick her fingers. The electricity escapes from every single pore, punishing in its wild, uncontainable fury. Exhilarating in its pure, vindictive drain. She's gasping and he's in pieces and the room is suddenly nothing but black.

She's suddenly nothing but black.

[_now it's your time and you know where you stand_.]

Her swing goes a little too left, slices past Noah's cheek, and he shakes his head, corrects her stance.

Claire digs the board into her palm when she curls her fingers a little too tight and the dull ache makes her heart beat a little faster against her ribs. Makes her feel a little more _here_, as if she's actually in this room, actually learning these steps. As if the marks in her palm are really lingering there, healing so so slowly, red lines that she hasn't been able to press onto her skin for months. It makes her angry, really, the pain, and that she can really feel.

She's irritated. She's been irritated for a while now, has let it build up right inside her chest, a weight against her ribs. It's not just frustration, it's loss and ache and the insecure effects of not_ knowing_. She dreams up answers and then tears them down. She's heard rumors and knows facts, longs for truth. There's a murmur that echoes _ElleElleElle_ against the walls of her brain even when she sleeps, even when she falls, even when she desperately tries to drown it out.

Even when it becomes a part of herself she hates.

He lunges at her again and she bites back a weary, frustrated sigh, lurches left instead. She swings, a little less clumsily than the time before, and the wood connects with skin and bone. Noah grins, Claire's hands ache, and it just makes her want to hit him harder.

Claire thought, maybe, for about the first five minutes that she was powerless, things could go back. But almost as soon as the thought entered her mind, Noah took it away. Reminded her there was nothing to go back to, nothing but lies and misconceptions and, truthfully, nothing but him. Nothing but his lies and misconceptions and sometimes painfully clear insights. So Claire hits back and tries to smother the quiver of fear low and tense in her belly, the fear of guns and broken bones and knives that she's lost her immunity to.

When she sees Elle, the fear disappears. It's such a stupid, uncontrollable reaction that it's impossible to combat. Elle, with her determined gaze, with her pale, powerless hands, with that soft mouth set in a hard line. A flicker of a shadow flits across her features when her eyes meet Claire's, but she smothers it with a sadistic smile. Claire is unnerved to realize she can tell it's faked. It's a second, maybe two, but their eyes are wild and scared and predict events better than their minds.

Sylar appears from behind Elle and Claire's stomach tightens for a second before she realizes he doesn't have his powers either. The four of them argue, pointlessly, and then Noah pulls out his gun and they argue without anymore words. Claire thinks, more than once, that maybe she should just go with them. Noah would never allow it, but she can't see a reason why she shouldn't. Kind of stupidly just wants to be around Elle.

She tries to stay out of the way, wrestles with the need to do something, shoots glances in Elle's direction. The gun goes skittering across the hardwood floor and then Elle is cradling it in her hands, pointing it across the room. Noah's finally turning around and Elle curls her finger on the trigger.

Claire can't let it happen again.

It wouldn't have mattered who was shooting the gun, wouldn't have mattered the time or the place or the reason. She finds it physically impossible to stand and watch, she finds it mentally impossible to restrain herself. The gun goes off and it takes Claire a second to realize she's in the air and there's a flash of hot pain against her stomach and Elle's smile falters, almost falls off her face, and then Claire hits the floor.

_[counting on the night for a beautiful day__._]

His dark hair, twisted tight between her fingers, is not the same as Claire's. His eyes, shut or steady on her skin, careful or blurred by desire, are not the same as Claire's. His skin is darker, rougher, not the same as Claire's. The way he breathes when he's inside her, the tense of his shoulders, the slope of his back, it's all different from Claire and that's his saving grace. He is everything that won't remind her and it's the only thing damming Elle's need. It's the only thing calming her emotions. He is nothing.

He, Sylar, Gabriel, the man with a weapon for a brain, has soft eyes when he looks at her. He sticks by her side like he was made to stand there and when she touches him at first it's only to find out if he'll pull away.

He doesn't, of course. She was expecting that.

The pieces of him grind together as unevenly as Elle's do and she likes to push them further apart, likes to fit herself into the cracks. The sex means nothing. She wants to crawl inside him and take him apart from the inside out, discover what he finds so fascinating about the process. She wants electricity between his atoms, crawling along his neuroses.

She thinks because they're both so dark they can't pull apart. They may be like magnets, they may be like super glue. Her hands smooth over his body, her muscles pull toward him; her body is trying to forget the feel of a heavy gun and the kick of its release. The sound of a bullet through-

He has knives for eyes, sometimes, when he's this close. She remembers the way he rips people apart and the way she rips people apart and wonders if they've changed, wonders at the block on her brain. There's blood on the floor in the hallway and its dried on her shoe and she can still feel the kick of a heavy gun. Can see the rips-

She knows Claire's not dead because her own heart is still beating but she thinks she may just bleed out. She thinks she may just ask him to rip her apart. After they're through, she lets him sleep. She lies with her eyes shut and replays the times she's had Claire beneath her hands, the times she's seen Claire with holes and broken bones.

This is different. This is real.

Later, when the bullets hurtle toward them, she almost forgets to flee and the dark spots inside tell her to _hesitate_.

[_now i'm no longer an ordinary man.  
__was this your big plan, your gun in your hand?_]

Her fingers hover over her stomach, searching for ghost pain and an invisible scar. The car bumps along another road, turns toward their neighborhood, and slides past more scenery. The dark outside is heavy against he car, creeping inside and in between her and Noah. She wants to yell at him but she just snipes, she wants to breathe a sigh of relief but nothing feels finished yet. She's dead, she's been dead, she's still breathing.

"I died." She tells Noah, looking for a reaction.

"When?" Is all she gets. The frustration inside her, the _disappointment_, cuts along the edges of her nerves. She dreams, briefly, of getting back into the car and driving it away. Maybe off a cliff.

"Why does it matter?" She spits, because she has some hesitant fear that it does matter, that her death is just another piece, just another continuation. She won't be the end.

"It matters." He answers, and then he's jogging toward the house and Claire's hesitant fear turns into terror and she's sprinting after him. "Where's your mother?" He asks, eyes traveling down the hallway.

"She's with us." Sylar's voice, almost familiar, signals his entrance, and Claire's heart stutters against her chest. One firm hand clutching Sandra near his side, Sylar glares at Noah and pushes the woman roughly ahead. Elle follows behind and her eyes briefly meet Claire's, but Claire can't find anything she recognizes. "We're taking Claire with us, that's what we came here for." Sylar threatens.

Why doesn't she just go? She not scared. She almost anything but scared. Hopeful, desperate, needy. What could be terrible about running away with Elle Bishop, with her hands and her mouth and her quick eyes and her new boyfriend. She knows Elle can't hurt her, has seen the careful curve of Elle's touch, has seen the stark pain in Elle's eyes whenever she has to.

But Noah just glares, eyes furrowed behind horn-rimmed glasses. Claire sees the end before it begins.

[_trying to recall what you want me to say_.]

Sand clings to her legs, crumbles off when she takes slow steps toward the water. The sun is slipping below the horizon, not giving much of fight, ready to see this day over with. Elle has no objections. Her mind is so preoccupied with a single person that she almost feels sane. She's fixated, pulling up snapshots of Claire, playing short films over and over in her head. She pauses where the waves stretch, where they reach to cross dry sand, and she stares at the lapping water, hardly noticing when it climbs over her toes.

The smell is like nothing else. She's never had to stand it for so long. It's heavy on her tongue, thick in her nose, wafting into her brain, and she'll never be able to escape it. It creeps into everything.

That's fine.

It smells like power, like success. It smells like betrayal. It's sickening but then so is she.

She crosses her arms, curling her fingers under her shirt, and slips the material off. Her jeans follow, the clothes tossed further back on the beach. She moves into the water, digging her toes into sand, reminded of Claire on the beach with wild eyes and a quick mouth. Two feet in and she dives, pushes her head under the water and opens her eyes. All she sees is dark. She doesn't know how to swim but it doesn't matter. She doesn't even know where she is, just that she needs a barrier between what she's done and where she stands.

The water is heavy and cold and unfamiliar, and it slides past her skin like it's kin to her own blood. She stays down until her lungs are burning and then she slips to the top, lifting her head above the water. It's grey out now, the sun all but gone. A wind whips across the shallow waves, pulls her hair around her neck.

Behind her, what's left of Sylar smolders on the beach, sending up a lone smoke signal against a slate gray sky.


End file.
